A certain moment from last year’s presidential election is usually singled out by Trump supporters and out-of-touch elite media columnists who love to write long dissertations about how the Democratic party is out-of-touch with the white working class. During a March 2016 CNN Town Hall, Hillary Clinton was asked, in effect, why poor white people should vote for her. Her response, where she talked about finding new job opportunities in a green economy that focused on clean renewable energy, was taken out of context and essentially quoted as: “we're going to put a lot of coal miners and coal companies out of business.”
Opponents of climate change prevention policies attacked, tying her response together with criticisms of Obama administration policies, and the moment was used by the current president to double-down. Trump has promised to create thousands of new coal industry jobs, but the symbolism of it fit the Trump campaign’s modus operandi.
For many of those who believe the bullshit about Trump and his ability to bring about a resurgence of manufacturing jobs, a defense of coal mining comes off as a defense of hard-working, rural white men and feeds into a resentment which believes the educated and privileged are judging and looking down their noses. Because for a certain segment of Americana, the terms "green jobs” and renewable energy—no matter how much sense they might make, no matter what kind of jobs they might create down the line—are going to be synonymous with “liberal pussies who drive a Prius,” and are therefore bad. But another sad facet of this particular mess is the fact some of the affected are poor people, desperate to believe in mirages and lies offered by con men.
Last night, John Oliver set his sights on coal, aka “cocaine for Thomas the Tank Engine," and the Trump administration’s lies on the subject. This incurred the wrath of Trump-friendly coal executives, who preemptively sent cease and desist orders to HBO when they heard about the segment. Bob Murray, CEO of Murray Energy Corp, whom according to Oliver might or might not resemble a “geriatric Dr. Evil,” has also sued the Huffington Post, the New York Times, and several local papers in attempts to counter negative reporting. Oliver, apparently backed by the lawyers of HBO, decided to respond by skewering Murray—with the help of a giant squirrel named Mr. Nutter Butter holding a check, telling Murray to kiss his ass.
From Melissa Locker at Time:
Before he was President, Trump campaigned hard in coal country promising coal miners that he would bring their jobs back, even though, as Oliver pointed out, Trump may have no clue what a miner actually does. “He may very well think it’s running up to things he wants and yelling, ‘mine!’,” Oliver said.
Now that he’s in office, Trump has created some 1,300 coal jobs (which Oliver noted is far less than the number he claims to have created) and cited coal mining as one reason for pulling out of the Paris Climate Agreement.
But according to Oliver, coal only has about 76,000 coal jobs vs
J.C. Penney which has 114,000 jobs despite being on the brink of bankruptcy. Oliver did say, though, that coal mines are central to the economies of the few cities in which they are located. “When coal jobs go away, communities feel it,” said Oliver, particularly because coal jobs are high paying jobs. Oliver noted that coal mining jobs declined under former President Obama, but pointed out that such work had been declining for decades like “careers in the Zeppelin industry and babies named Adolf.” According to Oliver, that decline is correlated to the drop in natural gas prices and growth in renewable energy. Solar power is frequently much less expensive than coal, so much so that the Kentucky Coal Mining Museum is solar powered, which Oliver noted was like “
Rock and Roll Hall of Fame was brought to you by Smashmouth.”
As for Murray, the man has a long history of ignoring worker safety and over a dozen violations resulting in multiple fines for his Utah based Murray Energy mining operations. Murray’s operation has went so far to threaten mine workers with their jobs if they should blow the whistle on anything improper, doing it in PowerPoints which explicitly spell out how limited their job opportunities are if Murray Energy should terminate their employment.
Apparently, in the folklore of Murray Energy, Bob Murray was inspired to begin his mining company by a talking squirrel. However, officials with Murray Energy deny this fanciful story … now.